


it's only forever

by Skyepilot



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, First Time, Kree (Marvel), Love Letters, Soulmates, Telepathic Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-05-28
Packaged: 2019-05-15 00:08:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14779880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyepilot/pseuds/Skyepilot
Summary: Daisy lost Coulson. And then she didn't.





	it's only forever

It's lonely out in space.

It's lonely on this ship.

It hangs on her, like a shroud.

The days demarked by the swing in the hips of her Hula girl when they alter their course.

The others keep their distance, except for Mack. Elena tries, but she is wrestling with herself, and trying to heal in her own way.

There is a wall between her and Simmons. Possibly of her own building, but also the other's silent acknowledgment.

That they are out there searching for someone who would trade life so casually when Coulson traded his life to save the team.

Then he traded his life for her. It wouldn't have been her choice.

She wouldn't be here if he hadn't.

It makes her angry at the unfairness of it. It makes her exhausted at the idea that his love is a memory she has to keep alive.

His letter is with her, always. To remind her of how she was loved.

It's the kind of love that changes you, that makes her reflect on how he drove back her self-hatred, even to the last. How precious it was.

It worked. She is not having any doubts about what she is doing out here now. She just needs somewhere to begin.

Her mission is to find Kasius's father, to make the Kree understand what they are dealing with.

And to make sure they never return to Earth again, that Inhumans will never be sold as weapons for their wars.

Mack knows. He can see she has no intention of going back, and he understands grieving. The intuition they are not exactly searching for the same things now.

Coulson was tired. There were reasons, and she hasn't told the others.

His letter _was_ about how he was proud of her, but it was also an apology. When he took the deal that eventually killed him, it undid other things.

Other lives and lifetimes and it was too much to keep fighting with this body in order to get more time.

The hope that he would always be with her. That they are connected.

Some of the things he said sounded half-formed and like they're not possible, and she is trying to make sense of them. Coulson always liked to solve puzzles.

But then, Kasius's father was in her head, from a galaxy far away.

She goes to her bunk and closes her eyes. She tries to focus on the idea that Coulson is still out there, somewhere. That it wasn't the end.

After all, he lived and died and lived again.

Then she cries a little because she can't figure out what else to do with the disappointment, removing her boots, and laying down on top of the covers.

Tired of crying, too. 

There is a hand on her shoulder. The ghost of a hand and she startles awake, looking around the tiny space.

She's had dreams like this before. It made her feel like she might be losing her mind.

Her and Coulson, alone before the end of the world. Coulson almost touching an object that would take his hand. Isn't that what came true? 

What if they weren't her own dreams, but someone was telling her what would come?

Like Robin and her powers, the way that all of those images flood together like she is being shown things no one is meant to see.

She stands and looks at the details around her. It's just as she remembers it before she drifted off. Her boots are there on the floor.

There is someone approaching the door of her bunk, a knock.

She lifts a hand and knows at the same moment that her powers don't work. That it's happening again like before, and she concentrates on using her powers to wake up and escape.

It's not working.

Reaching for her boot, even knowing it's not logical, it's the heaviest object she can find. She lifts it as the door slides open.

It falls out of her hand to the floor.

" _Daisy_."

His voice is soft, gentle. The same way she's replayed it in her head, along with other words. He is wearing a suit like he did the day they first met.

"How?" she manages to say, finding her body starting to tremble, overwhelmed.

"I know it's hard to accept, but we're connected. It's like programming. The code returning to the source."

"Like a homing pigeon," she says, thinking about him drawing a map to a Kree temple, hours and hours of drawing until they found a way to shut it off.

"I was hoping for something a little more grandiose," he tells her, smiling. "But I guess that works?"

"Are you here with me?" she asks, taking a step towards him, and lifting her hand. He looks the same, but somehow _more_ himself.

"We're in a place where you and I can meet together."

Her hand touches his arm, moves up his shoulder. "This feels real," she tells him.

"It _is_ real," he replies, as his eyes search all over her face like he is making sure he's as convinced by his own words.

And she knows that he had to lose her, too, and what that feels like.

They come together and she wraps her arms around his neck, pulling him into her as hard as she can.

Sighing against her hair, he slides his hand along her back and then follows the curve of her neck, holding her tightly, like she's everything.

"I missed you," he whispers to her, his voice heavy with emotion. Pulling back just enough to make a connection with her eyes. "There is so much, but, it doesn't have you."

"Can I find you?" she asks excitedly, putting her hands on his wrists as he holds her face in his hands.

"I don't know," he tells her, shaking his head. "I can come here, though. I can help you."

"You said it was like code returning to the source," she reminds him. "If it has a source, then maybe if I get to the source, I can hack-"

"They don't know I've found you," he tells her, as her hands guide his wrists lower. "I'd like to keep it that-"

When his hands are at her waist, she moves against him and kisses him quiet.

It takes him by surprise only for a moment, and he pulls her against him, then walking them back until they are up against the wall of her bunk.

" _Spy_ ," she teases him, touching her fingers to his reddened lips, the smile forming there.

"It was always you, Daisy," he tells her, then kisses the tips of her fingers, his eyes going soft. "Other lives, but I was waiting. For you."

She lets him kiss her again, swinging open something shut closed inside of her. Pent-up, now set loose. 

It was complicated before, and suddenly, it's not.

His suit seems out of place, almost like an anachronism, and she pulls the lapels apart, the only suggestion that he needs to start taking off his jacket.

"I haven't told the others," she confesses, yanking her sweater over her head, turning back over her shoulder. "They won't believe me."

"Then don't," he tells her, setting his jacket aside and touching her bare shoulders, tracings his fingers along her skin, then following it with kisses.

"Can we meet like this whenever we want?" she asks him, as he unhooks her bra, then slips it off her shoulders, leaving it in her hands.

"I'm not sure," he says with a smirk, sighing loudly when she turns back around to face him. "I'm definitely more than willing to find out."

She takes his shirt in her fists and pulls them both down to the bunk together.

 

###

She listens to the hollow-sounding, pounding noise, repetitive.

Then she turns away from the door, into him lying against her, fit into the small space between her and the wall.

"What is that?" he asks.

"I think I'm being summoned," she tells him, kissing his shoulder. "So you'll just disappear when I decide to wake up?"

He looks at her warmly and slips his fingers through her hair. "I'm not sure. It's my first time doing this."

She smirks over at him. "Do you have to get decent before you end up...wherever you are?"

"Might not be a bad idea," he tells her, after thinking it over, and reaches across her to lean over the bunk to the floor to grab his boxer briefs as she laughs.

"You just never know," he insists, raising his eyebrows, moving out of the way to let her off the bed, then grabs her wrist. "I don't want to have to say goodbye yet."

"Same. We only have forever, Phil."

He kisses her hand, sparing a moment for each of her knuckles.

Her eyes open, and she's alone in her bunk, the pounding has stopped, and the door is sliding open.

"Hey!" she yells, stepping into her boots quickly without tying them, jumping up out of the bed, and standing right in the doorway as it opens.

"Where have you been? We were looking everywhere for you!" Simmons says, exasperated.

"I was having some _me time_ ," she tells her, pushing past her into the hallway, ignoring the roll of her eyes as she turns to follow after her.

She smiles to herself, looking ahead.

She's not alone.


End file.
